Intorduction

Wal-Mart story started from a man with a dream named Sam Walton. Sam first owned a variety store in Newport, Arkansas. After losing his rent, Sam found a new location to restart his business which was in Bentonville, Arkansas. By working very hard to satisfy his customers with possible low price, Sam had increased sale and grew profit rapidly. Until 1962, Sam and his brother, Bud, had expanded their business as a large regional chain of 15 stores. After the business grew, Sam wanted to build larger store in the town. Though, without any support from his main supplier, Sam and his family worked together to build out the larger store called Wal-Mart discount store.


The Wal-Mart store was very successful. In 1983, Walton’s family expanded their business into larger metropolitan area and started the first wholesale club called Sam’s club in Oklahoma City. As business keeps growing, Wal-Mart has expanded its division into many countries around the world. Based on the Wal-Mart growth table, in 1970 Wal-Mart had only $30.8 million revenue, 32 stores, and 900 associates. Wal-Mart had dramatically increased its revenue in 2004 up to $256.3 billion, 4906 stores in eleven countries, and 1.5 million associates worldwide. Ranging in the 36th largest discount chain in the country in 1971, which below many other well-known retailers such as Sears with sales of $9.3 billion, JC Penny-$4.2 billion, and K-Mart- $2.6 billion, now Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world with hundreds of billions in sales (Soderquist, 2005).

Wal-Mart now has many different divisions around the globe which include discount stores, supercenters, neighborhood markets, and Sam’s clubs and the only reason for these divisions is to provide customers with needed products and services at an affordable prices and conveniences. From managerial perspective, the most three important strategies for Wal-Mart’s operational model are cost management, people management, and growth management.